THE
NEW COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE
CAL FORNIA
Main Life.
THE NEW COLLEGE OP AGRICULTURE
[ Reprint from the UNIVERSITY or CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE, Vol. XV, No. 1 ]
' : "":"-. ' '
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Mai-
EECORD OF THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW
COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND OF
THE INSTALLATION OF DEAN
THOMAS FORSYTH HUNT,
NOVEMBER 20, 1912
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER
Of all departments of the University the well-being of
the State is most closely interlocked with the College of
Agriculture. It is therefore both for University and State
a significant occasion when on this one day we dedicate a
new building for agriculture, induct into office a new
Director, and inaugurate a new and far-reaching policy
for the organization and equipment of agricultural edu-
cation.
Our problem in California is among all the states as
uniquely complicated as it is uniquely vast. The variety
of our products of the soil far exceeds that of any other
state. The tilling of our soil requires for efficiency more
use of special knowledge and of the results of scientific
investigation than the agricultural practice of any other
state. Whether it be for the production of wealth or for
the establishment of homes and the morals of the family,
the prosperity and soundness of the state is chiefly de-
pendent on the farms and the farmers. If you want popu-
lation, commerce, and bank deposits for your cities, seek
o r* i
* • *•-•; •
VH/-U
: •' •*
. thrifty farmers, and sound procedure for your farms, and
all these other things "shall be added unto you."
The Regents, in fashioning a policy which should as-
sume to be in some wise commensurate with the need of
the state, have determined first of all to seek an equipment
in men. In making selection they have looked the country
over; their question has been, — not whom they could get,
but whom did they want. Five such men they have already
appointed to full professorships, and these with others to
follow will begin work with us either at New Year's or
the coming summer. We have reckoned hereby on Cali-
fornians as likely to recognize that the best is precisely
what they want.
The second feature of our policy involves the clear
differentiation of the various forms of our work and the
development of each into its proper place. Berkeley, Davis,
Riverside, Whittier, Meloland, have each their place and
work. They are not rivals, but each the center for a certain
sort of work. Each has its own fitness. Fresno will shortly
be added to the list. The distribution of the work among
these centers will be discussed this evening by Director
Hunt in his inaugural address.
But more important than the various places are the
various activities, e.g., research and the solving of problems,
training in the science of agriculture, training in the arts
of agriculture, provision of short courses, spreading of
information through publications, farmers' institutes and
the train and through correspondence, training of teachers
and provision of methods for agricultural education in the
schools.
Experience with the school at Davis proves that the
provision of education for young farmers who have passed
the age when they could be expected to go through the
schedules of a preparatory and a college course is a real
need. This was really what the farmers wanted when
agricultural education was first attempted, only we did
not fully understand them. It is fortunate we can develop
this form of instruction at a distance from the university.
Equally important is it that the stricter training in the
science of agriculture which is to provide the teachers and
discoverers should be conducted at least in the earlier years
at the university.
What we saw once as in a glass darkly, we are coming
now to see clearly. We have with all this variety of equip-
ment and location the opportunity to develop in California
the completest and richest system of agricultural education
and research that the world has yet seen. We have made
our beginning. We have the place for it and the sky for
it and the heart for it. We will prove it to the people of
California well worth while and they will support us.
ADDRESS OF PETER J. SHIELDS
It would be impossible, in the few moments which the
circumstances permit, for me to fittingly express the signifi-
cance of this hour. It is the culmination of long years of
waiting, of the slow growth of a Western civilization ; the
fruit of fine hopes and patient, unselfish efforts. It is the
beginning of a larger effort to teach men the sound princi-
ples which have stood the test of experience and which in
all ages have given security and happiness to the peoples
that have practiced them. I should like to felicitate with
you over what has been done, but we must press on for
what remains for us to do. I should like to speak a few
words in praise of those who have helped in this work, but
they do not need it. It is enough that their wish has been
realized; that the truth for which they labored, today
receives this high sanction. I should like to speak of agri-
culture as one of the noblest of all occupations, but it is in
submission to that truth that we are here and it does not
need expression.
We have contended warmly over what was education,
as to what were its aids and its agencies. Some of us have
doubted whether men might be educated through things,
6
through a knowledge of nature, and the practice of her
laws. It would be interesting today to take up that dis-
cussion, but it would be fruitless. That cause has been
tried, and today in monumental form, we record the verdict.
It will be enough to point to the most tangible lesson
of history that agricultural industry has been the surest
foundation for a state and the extent to which it was
fostered has been the measure of a people's progress.
Mysterious Egypt, of which we know only that it was
great, at the height of its development made slaves of its
farmers. Magnificent India founded its future upon agri-
culturalists whom she condemned to a degraded caste. Rome
plundered and oppressed her farmers to a condition of
poverty and discredit. They are all gone, and volumes
have been written in an effort to trace the cause. It could
be written in a sentence. They built their societies from
the top, and devoted their efforts to the worship of false
social quantities. That we should honor agriculture is the
lesson of their dread experience. But we cannot do this
as a duty; it must spring from an honest estimate. This
building stands for this appreciation and respect. It will
help us to honor agriculture, through making it honorable.
It will unfold its mysteries, it will exhibit its beauties, it
will develope its strength till an admiring and respectful
nation will proclaim its primacy.
This country was founded upon the principle that labor
is honorable, and we made agriculture our chief pursuit.
We have grown in devotion to that truth. We have got our
vigor from the soil. Most of our ablest men have been
country-bred. Our distinctive institutions were nourished
there. Its ideals have colored and formed our policies. In
recent years this dominance has been threatened, and our
problems have multiplied. This way lies their correction.
I will not attempt any elaboration of this structure's
significance. It stands as a monument to the new agricul-
ture, the agriculture of thought and knowledge which has
come to redeem the industry and to secure for it its propor-
tionate place in our civilization. It means the beauty and
the strength of the out-of-doors. It means the peace and
solitude where men think profoundly and adhere tenaci-
ously, where strong characters are formed and high pur-
poses are nourished. It means food and raiment and
shelter; the primal things that go to the roots of life, and
supply the basis of all of our institutions. It stands for
toil and proclaims the honest eminence of useful labor. It
stands for simplicity as the eternal measure of permanence.
It calls men out from the crowded places to where the
horizon is wide, where the majesty of nature prompts man
to its imitation.
We are multiplying very rapidly the complications of
our civilization and we ask ourselves to what limits we may
safely go in the direction we call progress. The answer
is here, that we cannot get far away from the standards this
structure proclaims, from the country-bred man, the man
who is constantly measuring his work with the work of
nature and thus keeping it true. Life may become very
fine and high, but it must remain natural to keep its
strength. We should look to this hall as a beacon, lighting
the way in which we may go in safety. It will stand a per-
petual reproach to frivolity, artificiality, and idleness; it
will supply an antidote for the dependence of the sub-
merged, and for the arrogance of the over-fortunate. It
proclaims the farmer the type man of America; it ad-
monishes us to train him — but keep him a farmer. -
Agriculture is not only an industry, it is a life. This
building stands for the preservation of that life, for its
elevation and such a distribution of its ideals as will flavor
the whole life of our country.
This is indeed a great day for California. We are taking
stock of our condition. When we find a people engaged as
we are today, met in the spirit in which we are met, we
know that they are going forward on the broad highway of
life, that their estimate of social values is true, and that they
have avoided the temptations to which other nations have
succumbed.
Different states or societies at different times have built
monuments to the principles they worshipped; to express
their faiths or to point their hopes. A mystic race built
the Pyramids. Today these stand, lonesome sentinels in
the desert, typifying nothing save that races not soundly
founded will perish. Tamerlane built a structure of skulls
in testimony of his faith in war and its all-conquering
power. It crumbled scarcely as fast as his leadership, his
empire, his people, and his race ; as the false principles upon
which he had based the success of his efforts. The Pagan
races erected temples to earth-made gods, but these people
banished, their gods are forgotten, their temples have dis-
appeared, or their fragments remain in proof that what is
not true cannot be perpetuated. The triumphal arches
of the Eomans serve only to remind us that the judgment
which called them such was mistaken, and that a race
devoted to conquest and oppression will disappear. The
monuments upon the torture fields of Smithfield and Salem
are the tombstones of dead institutions.
The monument we have built here was built in another
spirit. It was built in submission to an all-prevading law,
built in harmony with nature. It was built to serve human
need and not the greed or vanity of privilege. It was built
in devotion to knowledge and industry, the everlasting
things. It will survive, in the things it stands for, while
the world lasts. Tens of millions of people will come to
this fair land, to live here a more involved and elaborated
life than the world has elsewhere known. If they keep
their eyes upon this temple and walk in its shadow, if they
practice the truths for which it stands, their society will
live as long.
Today we reaffirm that faith. Let us rededicate our-
selves to the efforts which have brought about this hour.
Let us build this structure higher and broader until its
spirit is in every heart and until every hearthstone in our
country becomes part of its foundation.
ADDRESS OF E. P. CLARKE
In one of his letters to Timothy the Apostle Paul speaks
of a class of men who are ''ever learning and never able to
come to the knowledge of the truth"; and that very accu-
rately describes the condition of the growers of oranges
and lemons in California. For nearly fifty years they have
been studying and experimenting but they cannot claim
today to have reached a position where they feel sure even
of the fundamentals of an industry which has become one
of the greatest in the state. California produces annually
over 40,000 cars of oranges and lemons, bringing nearly
$20,000,000 every season to the growers. These figures
would seem to spell success and in a limited sense they do ;
but the growers do not know but that they ought to be
producing 50,000 or 60,000 cars as easily as 40,000 ; and they
are quite sure that on much of their acreage they ought to
be producing better fruit. On questions of methods, on
the problems of planting, irrigation, fertilization, pruning,
frost protection, and other essentials in the business, they
are still in the primer and I might almost say in the kinder-
garten class.
There came recently to Riverside, one of the great
centers of the orange industry, a wise man from England —
and sometimes when they are wise there they are very sure
about it. This particular wise man was one of that type;
and after a few days' stay "in our midst," as the country
editor would say, he proceeded to tell us that everything
we did about the orange and lemon business was all wrong.
He told us that we did not know how to plant our orchards
properly in the first place and then that our methods of
applying the water, cultivating the soil, fertilizing, etc.,
were improper and the wonder was that we raise any
oranges at all. I am not quite sure but that he holds that
the sun rises and sets in the wrong place in Riverside;
certain it is that he found pretty much everything else
10
wrong there and in every other orange growing community
that he condescended to inspect.
Some few laughed him to scorn and would not admit
that the methods tested by years of experiment should be
set aside on the ex-cathedra advice of one who might be an
authority and who might also be an impractical theorist.
In general, however, his revolutionary statements were re-
ceived by the growers with chastened attention, if not with
humiliation and repentance, and many said, "Well, he may
be right, we are not sure," and they are preparing to adopt
the recommendations of this wise man from England and
make a complete change in their cultural methods. They
are ready to do this because they are not confident of the
correctness of their present methods and not satisfied with
the results they are attaining.
Nearly two years ago the paper with which I am con-
nected startled some of the orange growers of Riverside, and
offended others, by announcing in a leading editorial that the
orange groves of this, the oldest and largest citrus growing
district in the state, were not producing nearly as much fruit
as they ought to or as the groves in certain other sections,
where the conditions were practically the same as in River-
side, were producing. We followed up this editorial with a
series of articles that were intended to prove the correct-
ness of the premises laid down and to arouse interest in
improved methods. We made out a very good case, at least
we thought so, and some growers were even grateful for
the criticism and said so (an experience that is exceedingly
rare in newspaper offices). We invited suggestions as to
remedies and received scores of letters many of which read
like the directions for the use of patent medicines and
advanced claims for results that were as sweeping as those
guaranteed in the advertisements of these same remedies.
Some of these suggestions were well considered and helpful,
others were fantastical and absurd; but even the most
absurd received a measure of consideration because the
average grower does not feel sure that his methods are the
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correct ones and he is ready to try almost any nostrum, if it
is recommended to him in sufficiently alluring terms. Here
is a community of the most experienced and most successful
orange growers in the state and one would naturally sup-
pose that they would, after these many years of experience,
have reached substantial agreement as to how to grow
oranges; but we find them proposing, from their several
individual experiences, a score of different methods dia-
metrically opposed to one another. Some of these may IM*
right but most of them are probably radically wrong.
Within the last twenty-five years I have seen groves
budded from oranges to lemons, from lemons to cjrape fruit,
from grape fruit back to oranges, from navels to Valencias
and from Valencias back to navels again. The economic
waste in this series of changes is enormous and it can be
accounted for only on the ground of indecision and Qu<
tion of opinion as to what is the wise and profitable thing
to do. The same fluctuation of opinion in most lines of
business would be more likely to be followed by bankruptcy
than success.
Why do I on this occasion make this confession of ad-
mitted ignorance and partial failure in behalf of the
orange growers of Southern California? In order that I
may emphasize the pressing need and the wonderful oppor-
tunity of the department of agriculture of the University
of California. We are assembled today to give recognition
to its expansion and to rejoice in the completion of the
noble building by which its usefulness will be enhanced;
but we must not lose sight of the fact that the fields are
still white for the harvest and that from all over the state
there is coming up to this department of our great university
a demand for scientific investigation, experiment, and in-
struction which is not only important but essential to the
future prosperity and development of the state. I have
spoken of conditions in the citrus industry because I am
familiar with them, but the same need for help exists in
other branches of fruit growing and farming; and in some
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instances it is more imperative than it is in the case of the
grower of oranges and lemons.
It is doubtful if there can be found anywhere in the
world a more intelligent and enterprising class of men
engaged in any form of agriculture than those who are in
the business of fruit growing in California. Many of them
were men of large affairs in the East and they have sought
to apply to the fruit industry in this state the energy, in-
telligence, and enterprise that gave them conspicuous suc-
cess in other lines of business. They are moreover respon-
sive in an unusual degree to suggestion and instruction
when it comes from a source that has some claims to
authority; but they are agreed that the problems which
confront them are too great to be solved by individual or
even community effort. Even the owner of a large ranch
cannot maintain a laboratory on his grounds and he cannot
afford to convert a considerable part of his property into
an experiment station where various theories and sugges-
tions may be worked out to some ultimate conclusion; and
if that is true of the large grower, the helplessness of the
owner of a small ranch is the more apparent.
The citrus fruit growers of California must spend not
less than $6,000,000 a year on fertilizers ; but they are not at
all sure that this money is spent wisely. They experiment
with different things from year to year, and it is not easy
to find any two who pursue exactly the same method or who
are agreed as to what is the best system.
Take the matter of frost protection as another illustra-
tion. Last winter was the most severe the citrus belt in
California and Arizona has experienced for twenty years;
fully 10,000 carloads of oranges and lemons were destroyed
by cold or damaged so that they were marketed with loss
instead of profit. The loss was at least $5,000,000 to the
growers; and to a considerable extent that loss was un-
doubtedly preventable. But here again there is need of
careful, thorough, scientific study of the problem such as
the university can give. Much has been done already in
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the investigation of this subject and the university authori-
ties have done their part; but we are still very much at
sea as to what to do and how to do it. Conclusions will not
be reached in a day as the result of any investigation ; but
if the experiments are conducted with such care and thor-
oughness as a corps of trained men can give to them the
conclusions, when reached, will make possible immunity
from any such general and disastrous loss as came to the
orange and lemon growers last December.
If the picture I have drawn regarding conditions in the
orange industry seems rather a dark one, there is a bright
side which ought to be given equal prominence. Some of
the most important benefits and improvements that have
come to the industry in recent years have been the direct
result of scientific research by representatives of the state
university and the federal department of agriculture.
While we expect much greater things of the university in
the future, we have not forgotten the good work done, with
limited facilities, under the direction of Professor Hilgard
and Professor Wickson. The orange growers remember
their deliverance from the cottony cushion scale by the
vedalia cardinalis and the prompt and effective work done
to stamp out the dreaded white fly, just as the lemon men
deeply appreciate the important work accomplished in the
investigation of the brown rot, and as other industries
appreciate the work in their behalf on the walnut blight,
the pear blight, the tomato rust and other troubles with
which the farmers of the state have had to contend. The
improvements in methods of handling oranges suggested
by Mr. G. Harold Powell have been generally adopted and
without doubt have saved the growers upwards of
$1,000,000 a year. Mr. A. D. Shamel, another expert from
Washington, is now studying the problem of barren and
productive strains of oranges and has already demon-
strated the fact that quite a large percentage of the trees
in our orange groves were budded from unproductive stock,
thus greatly diminishing the yield which should be received.
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Extensive rebudding will follow his investigations and all
future budding will be done from trees known not only to
be vigorous in growth but known also to be producing
regularly a heavy crop of fruit of good quality.
Some of the things taught the orange growers by Mr.
Powell and Mr. Shamel have been so simple and ele-
elementary that they wonder why they never discovered
them for themselves; but that work requires men trained
in scientific research. What has been done simply suggests
the almost boundless field for future endeavor, provided
men and means are supplied to do the work.
Very largely I have been considering field work in my
references to results accomplished; but without buildings
and equipment such as we rejoice in today, the preparation
for and direction of the field work is impracticable and the
co-related laboratory investigation is impossible. The first
need is men but we need facilities to train them and equip-
ment to make their work effective. The present day ' ' back
to the farm" movement, of which we hear so much, is empha-
sized by the multiplication of agricultural high schools and
the inauguration of new colonization schemes. Unless,
however, these schools are supplied with competent teachers
they will largely fail of their purpose; and unless both
promoters and colonists in land enterprises are properly
instructed and directed, disappointment and disaster will
attend many endeavors that are honest and well intended.
Just here we need the university to step in and furnish the
instruction and expert knowledge that are essential either
for successful teaching or successful farming.
In California it is no great miracle to make two blades
of grass grow where none grew before; the application of
water to our soil will do that; but to make two bushels of
wheat grow where one grows now, to make the vineyards
produce two tons of grapes where one is produced now, and
to make possible the harvesting of two boxes of oranges
where one is harvested now — these problems are not so
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simple and easy of solution. To master them, the farmers
of the state need the very best help the university can give
them.
Perhaps some will expect too much from the enlarged
scope of the activities of the agricultural department of the
university; certain it is that no work it may ever do can
guarantee every farmer in the state a big crop every year
and an automobile to go to town in. To those, however,
who will reach out to take hold of the guiding hand which
the university will extend, it will be possible to walk in
the broad highway of success. I believe that President
Wheeler and the Regents of the University have a vision
of the future relations of the University to the farmers and
fruit growers of California that will be made possible by
the work of men like Dr. Hunt, Dr. "Webber, and Professor
Stubenrauch — a vision which will be realized in a vast
increase in the cultivated area of the state and an increase
in crops commensurate with the fertility of our soil and the
perpetual stimulus of our golden sunshine.
California is expecting to reap great benefits from the
opening of the Panama Canal' but the completion of that
great undertaking is going to bring us problems as well as
blessings. The rich tourist can come to California now but
the present immigrant from Europe stops on the other side
of the country. The railroad fare from New York to San
Francisco acts as a high tariff that operates to shut this
class of immigration out of California. With the opening
of the canal, however, the immigrant from Europe can
come in through the Golden Gate and be landed in San
Francisco at practically the same steamship fare he now
pays to reach New York. And they will come here — not
the fair-haired, blue-eyed Saxon from the north but much
| less desirable classes, the timid and thrifty Jew from
Russia, the stolid Slav from Central Europe, and the hot-
blooded Latin from the Mediterranean. Are we ready for
them ? Not yet. If they congregate in the cities, they will
prove a curse rather than a blessing to the state. The only
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hope we have of assimilating them is to get them out on
the farms.
California is not a manufacturing state, we cannot re-
store the gold to the gravels along our streams that once
offered wealth to the prospector, and it will take centuries
to re-forest our mountains with the timber that was once
another source of wealth and means of employment. But
the latent fertility of our soil abides and with proper man-
agement will never fail us. Generations may come and go
but harvest will continue to follow seed time. "We must
prepare the land for these people who are coming and when
they come prepare them for the land; and that great work
must largely be done by the agricultural department of the
state university. By conserving and developing our water
supply and by applying more scientific methods to our farm-
ing, we can make room for many thousands more in the un-
developed north, in the fertile valleys of the Sacramento
and San Joaquin — an empire in themselves — and on great
stretches of land redeemed from desert in the south. The
invading hordes will not be a menace to our state if we can
make farmers of them and place them in the environment
of country life. On the contrary, they will become loyal
and true Americans who will bow with us in reverence for
the lustre of the stripes and the glory of the stars of the
flag we love and honor.
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KESPONSE OF THOMAS FOKSYTH HUNT, DEAN OF THE
COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND DIRECTOR OF THE
AGRICULTURE EXPERIMENT STATION OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, UPON
FORMAL INDUCTION INTO OFFICE
In accepting the responsibility of Dean of the College of
Agriculture and Director of the Agricultural Experiment
Station, it must be recognized that I represent only one of
the agencies by which the University of California seeks
to develop the commonwealth. The office into which I have
just been formally inducted typifies the University's rela-
tion to the public welfare. The organization thus repre-
sented looks back over a generation of steady and successful
development under the guidance of but two directors, both
of whom have the unique distinction of remaining as
honored members of the faculty. The institution will honor
itself during this day's exercises by remembering them
with loving kindness.
With every generation of men new problems arise.
Through the operation of this law, the College of Agri-
culture finds itself in just that attitude. Some of these
problems are the most important as well as the most funda-
mental with which the Anglo-Saxon race has grappled
during the past forty centuries. The faculty of the College
of Agriculture suffers no illusions concerning its own limi-
tations and makes no promises beyond pledging its best
endeavors.
Upon behalf of himself and his associates the Dean and
Director appeals to all agencies, public and private, for
assistance and guidance. He asks the sympathy and
patience of the governor of the state, the president of the
University, the Board of Kegents, faculty and citizens of
California, while the following sane, safe, and sensible
18
policies of his predecessors, he unobstrusively and without
undue publicity endeavors to organize the best and most
efficient faculty of agriculture that has ever been known.
THE EVOLUTION OF AN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE BY
EUGENE W. HILGARD*
In celebrating today the completion of this building
devoted to the higher phases of agricultural education, we
hark back to the time when, just fifty years ago, the first
national recognition of the importance and rights of voca-
tional education was placed upon the status of the United
States by Senator Justin Morrill, of Vermont. At the
very height of the Civil War, there was thus manifested
the confidence in the future of the nation by the enactment
of this important measure for the promotion of the funda-
mental industry of peace. I propose to recall very briefly
the subsequent development of the educational and experi-
mental work thus initiated, and which through many vicissi-
tudes has now become an almost overshadowing movement,
among the results of which is the splendid building before
which we stand.
The critical clause of the " First Morrill Act" provided
that "there shall be established in each state at least one
college, the leading object of which shall be, without ex-
cluding classical and other literary studies, and including
military tactics, to teach the sciences bearing on agriculture
and mechanic arts, for the education of the industrial
classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."
The interpretation of this clause has been the subject of
much controversy ever since the end of the Civil War ; and
the echoes of that controversy are still at times with us.
On the one hand, it was contended that the act was intended
for the vocational education of "every farmer's son in the
land, ' ' and that the funds derived from the sale of the lands
* Read at the Dedication Exercises by Professor R. H. Loughridge.
19
allotted for that purpose should be used in the establishment
of numerous schools of agriculture scattered in the rural
districts ; or in order not to scatter the funds too much, that
one or several such schools should be established at easily
accessible points. On the other hand, it was contended that
in view of the utter inadequacy of the funds if thus applied,
and in view also of the use of the words "college" and
"sciences," the intention was that one or more institutions
of college grade, for the training of agricultural experts
and teachers, would be the most feasible way to fulfill the
intent of the Morrill Act, so that farm schools, or instruc-
tion in agriculture in the rural common and high schools,
could be gradually brought about.
Some states, e.g., Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Kansas, at
once adopted the first or * * popular ' ' plan, and took pains to
establish the agricultural college far away from the sup-
posed pernicious influence of the state universities, where,
as it was urged, boys would be "educated away from the
farm," and be looked down upon by the students in the
literary and scientific courses.
Having in 1868 been charged by the Regents of the
University of Mississippi with the organization of the state
agricultural college in connection with the university, and
finding irreconcilable differences of opinion among the col-
leges already established, I wrote to Senator Morrill himself
for an authoritative statement of his views and intentions
in framing the bill bearing his name. He replied that while
his object, as stated in the bill, was to have the industrial
masses better educated in their pursuits, he had purposely
left the several states to determine, by trial or otherwise,
how this object could best be accomplished ; but that in the
absence of any adequate number of competent teachers for
agricultural schools, he thought the establishment of at
least one high-class college in each state to be necessary.
The states themselves should do the rest. I should add that
in Mississippi I was compelled by popular clamor to estab-
lish first of all a farm school, with a noted practical agri-
20
culturist as chief instructor. His name at first attracted
quite a class of students. Brt when these found that, as
they thought, they were simply made to work as they had
been doing at home, with only a little education thrown in,
they became dissatisfied and left, saying they would rather
work for their parents than for the college. The experience
thus gained was very useful to me afterwards.
In this state, as is well known, the University was
formed by the conjoining of the College of California and
the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts ; the latter is
therefore one of the fundamental units of the institution;
and of the two buildings first constructed, the present
11 South Hall" was originally designated as the College of
Agriculture, and still bears on its gable ends sheaves of
cereals and fruit. But when I came to Berkeley as pro-
fessor of agriculture, I found that building occupied in the
main by other scientific departments, and by the library,
there being no other accommodations for these, while to
agriculture was assigned one-half of the basement. This
assignment formed the main basis for the complaints of
my predecessor, that agriculture was deprived of its proper
share in the University funds and accommodations that it
was given the cold shoulder by the Regents, and should
be removed from their control to a location in the rural
districts. This he proclaimed to the then very influential
farmers' organization, the Patrons of Husbandry, now
better known as the Grangers, and with their aid and sup-
port he introduced into the legislature a bill to segregate
the College of Agriculture from the University of Cali-
fornia. He then resigned from the University; and after
much hesitation I left the University of Michigan to take
his place.
Thus, when I arrived in California in 1875, I found a
rather unhappy situation. The most influential portion of
the farming population was solidly arrayed against the
University, determined to detach the College of Agriculture
from it, and in the meantime enforcing a boycott against
21
the attendance of farmers' boys as students. They clamored
for the reinstatement of my predecessor, and for the separa-
tion of the College of Agriculture, which they claimed was
discriminated against by Regents, Faculty and students,
who looked down upon agriculture as an inferior pursuit,
and that their boys would there be * ' educated away from the
farm." At every legislative session, for a number of years,
the agitation for separation was resumed, and in the inter-
vals it was advocated in tfce newspapers. For a time the
situation looked most discouraging, the more as I was the
sole representative of the college, and a stranger to the
people of the state.
During the first two years no students applied for the
course in agriculture proper; but I gave lectures on botany
and mineralogy, which were lacking at the time. I also
delivered lectures on various technical subjects in San Fran-
cisco and Oakland, and tried to start Farmers' Institute
meetings at outside points; but these were at first very
thinly attended. I also announced that I would investigate
any questions or problems submitted to me by farmers;
and it may be interesting to recall the fact that thus, in
June, 1875, the first Experiment Station in the United
States was definitely established in California, the experi-
mental orchard having already been planted in 1873.
Gradually these activities told upon the attitude of the
farmers, and I was at last invited to address some public
meetings of granges, where I had the opportunity to explain
my views and intentions. I laid special stress upon the
fact that they themselves were depreciating the dignity of
their calling by trying to keep their sons out of contact
with the rest of the educated professional men of the state ;
that there existed at the University no such snobbishness
as they imagined would "wean their boys from the farm,'*
and that they should assert, and not depreciate themselves.
I asked why they themselves sent so few farmers to the
legislature instead of lawyers and doctors. The hesitating
answer was that when they did send farmers to Sacramento
22
they were ''bamboozled" by the lawyers and doctors and
made to vote their way. "Then," said I, "what you really
need is better educated farmers, and more of them, trained
alongside of the other professional men and able to hold
their own with them ; so send your sons to the Agricultural
College and the University, instead of trying to put them
in the country by themselves. We need to introduce educa-
tion in agriculture into the public schools and secondary
schools, all over the state, and for that purpose we must
have teachers, and these teachers must be trained at the
University. So long as your boys know nothing but the
daily grind you give them on the farm, and the 'three RV
as taught in the country school, they will surely be drawn
from the farm, and the best of them will drift to the cities,
as you complain they do."
While this point of view was not always taken kindly, it
impressed a good many, and gradually students in agri-
culture came in from the country. Among the first to do so
were sons of viticulturists from Napa and Sonoma valleys,
from where also came the first movement for an appropria-
tion for a viticultural building and necessary cellar for
experimental work. The outcome of these first efforts might
have been seen in the little frame building, 40x18 feet, that
spanned the creek until recently, just below this present
building; and I regret that it was not allowed to stand
until today, by way of affording a comparison of those
times with the present, as evidence of the progress made
since then.
Yet, while the agitation for the separation of the Col-
lege of Agriculture from the University became less active,
so that we can now claim the Grangers as our very best
friends, there remained enough to defeat, at successive
sessions of the legislature, our efforts to secure an appro-
priation for an adequate building or buildings for the Col-
lege of Agriculture at Berkeley. The secessionists "held
up" all such efforts in committees, or by means of amend-
ments or riders at the last moments, although liberal appro-
23
priations for other purposes were favored by them. Here
again it was the influence of the viticultural interest that
first pushed through the legislature an outright appropria-
tion for a building; but it was rendered so inadequate by
a little clause slipped in that it sufficed for only half a
building. But we built this on a large foundation and
when it was halfway up the first floor was roofed over with
a temporary roof of felt, leaving the second floor an
"aching void." At the next session of the legislature a
committee of university inspection was sent from Sacra-
mento. They commented with some amusement on the
"rump" building representing the College of Agriculture,
and promptly reported on their return a bill appropriating
funds enough to complete the building and equip it
modestly.
That building, grown up by instalments, housed the
College of Agriculture up to March, 1897, when it burned
down to the first floor, with heavy loss in collections and
equipment. In rebuilding it was lengthened by fifty feet,
thus adding the present large lecture room and the much-
needed rooms above it. How even with this enlargement
the building soon became totally inadequate for the accom-
modation of the rapidly increasing demands and activities,
and how the working staff was forced to expand into several
neighboring buildings, including a horse stable, is known
to all here present. The second Morrill Act, the Hatch Act,
and the Adams Act, the last two specially providing for
experimental work, supplied the means for work but not
for buildings, and so served to increase the over-crowding.
Legislative provision for a permanent building was still
unobtainable owing to the opposition already referred to;
but the Regents, appreciating the importance of a creditable
permanent agricultural building on the University grounds,
appropriated the means for the present building out of the
general University income. This accomplished fact before
us, I hail as the final happy termination of the forty years'
contention for the principle of having the university
24
educate, in the man, the leaders, experts, and teachers who
are to carry the principles and practice of rational agri-
culture to the farmers at large, and to the public schools.
That this must ultimately be done through the agency of the
secondary schools, gradually working down into the graded
schools, is an obvious proposition which is happily empha-
sized by the late introduction into congress of the "Lever
Bill," providing for extension teaching in agriculture, and
by the broader bill of Mr. Page, again of Vermont, provid-
ing both for extension teaching and for that in high and
lower schools ; thus going to the very root of the matter of
the agricultural education of the masses of the farmers'
boys and girls, only a few of whom can go to an agri-
cultural college.
I hail with intense satisfaction this consummation de-
voutely to be wished, of which the establishment of the
Farm School at Davis is the beginning, which I trust will
be greatly extended and multiplied by the new Dean and
Director whom we welcome today. Whether separate agri-
cultural schools, or adjuncts to high schools be preferable,
the movement for popular agricultural education has now
gathered such force that, like other revolutions, it cannot
go backward, but will gain additional momentum from
year to year.
THE PEESENTATION OF THE KEY BY G. W. FOSTER
Mr. President and Friends of the University, I have
been requested, on behalf of the Regents, to present to you,
Mr. President, the key of Agriculture Hall, the dedication
of which we are this day celebrating. In doing so, I feel
embarrassed at the task of even attempting to express the
feelings which I personally hold in seeing such an artistic
and practicable building, adequate for the purpose, dedi-
cated to agriculture.
Since my earliest connection with the University I have
recognized the importance to this state of this great branch
25
of learning. I have often noted the indifference towards
it from quarters where encouragement should have come,
but now I am pleased, not only to express my gratification
but also of those who have consistently worked and waited
to see the Department of Agriculture take the leading place
it deserves in the energies of the University.
With the aid of Dean Hunt and such a competent corps
of professors which he has had the good fortune to secure,
with the aid and encouragement of the state, which is so
essential to our development and success, with an appreci-
ative and united people to encourage our efforts to make
the agricultural department of the University of California
second to none in our great country, the Regents cannot
but feel that the outlook for great results to the state at
large is most promising.
REMARKS BY RAY R. INGEL8 AT THE PRESENTATION OF
THE HILGARD BUST
A little over a year ago, at a meeting of the Agricultural
Club, a question was brought forward as to the best way
we could honor our famous old scientist, Dr. Hilgard.
After some discussion we finally decided that nothing would
be more appropriate than a bust of Dr. Hilgard placed in
the new building to be.
We had the hearty support of the Faculty, not alone
of the Agricultural College but of all the colleges in the
University. We also had the support of the college alumni
and of Dr. Hilgard 's many friends throughout the state.
Dr. Hilgard himself consented to sit for the artist, and
Mr. Ralph Stackpole, a young sculptor living in San Fran-
cisco, was procured to do the work.
Perhaps it would be wrell to state here our reasons for
trying to bestow honor upon Dr. Hilgard. We are trying
to honor a man whom as a man we all respect, admire, and
love as we do a member of our own families. We are try-
26
ing to honor a college professor, the former dean of our
college, for the great scientific work which he has accom-
plished under great difficulties. Finally we are trying to
honor a man who has brought honor to the name of Uni-
versity of California. His great work has not alone brought
honor to himself but has also reflected glory on his Uni-
versity. That is the chief reason that we are giving this
bust.
And now, in the name of the students, the alumni, and
Faculty of the University, and of Dr. Hilgard's many
friends, I take great pleasure in presenting to the Uni-
versity the bust of Dr. E. W. Hilgard.
EEMAEKS BY E. J. WICKSON AT THE UNVEILING OF THE
BUST OF E. W. HILGABD
I am a little disconcerted by the task allotted to me. In
searching the records of public unveilings from Phidias to
the Panama-Pacific Exposition, I do not find any satisfying
suggestion of what it is safe to say when called upon to
unveil a bust in the presence of the person who is honored.
Manifestly, I cannot tell the bust what I think of the
original without danger of reprisals by the latter; nor
dare I tell the original what I think of the bust — for fear
of the sculptor. The only safe way for me to proceed, I
think, will be to undertake a brief discourse on "The rela-
tion of some fundamentals of art to the development of the
Agricultural Department of the University of California.
In this way I may impress upon you the essential features
of the present situation and give us all a chance to escape
with our lives.
The particular thing which this department lacks worse
and needs most is perspective ; and that, I take it, is a funda-
mental of art. Since the University of California began
its agricultural career in 1869, four men have been elected
to leadership in agriculture — and three of them are here
27
today. Since the University established its experiment
station in 1875, the oldest, by the way, in the United States,
three men have been elected directors thereof — and they
all stand before you this morning. Our picture has no
perspective: it is all foreground: it is flat as the mural
paintings of Nineveh. But it is full of action: there is
sequence in it and there is a scale of values and we make
our great men large by defying perspective, as the Egyp-
tians did.
Thus we can symbolize progress. We can also recognize
progress in the mass, for there are things here which before
were not — and these things have been increasingly here for
we see the resources of the department, in officers and
students and its products, in courses of instruction and in
publications, increased from five hundred to a thousand per
cent during the last decade. Still there is no perspective,
for it is all so new and the men who have accomplished
this are still at work. But we are now laying the founda-
tions for a perspective. What we are doing today will be
counted a century hence as the beginnings of things.
Probably the best thing we can undertake for the future
is to fix a vanishing point in our horizon line, but what
can we do who have had to work with physical things which
would not remain long enough to vanish in a decently
orderly manner — with things which stayed not upon the
order of their going but went at once? Look at the agri-
cultural emblems on the sides of South Hall: they were
emblazoned to the honor of this department, but, from its
burrow in the basement, agriculture looked outward and up-
ward at them — as a man might be imagined to be looking
from his grave in wrapt admiration of the tracery on his
tombstone. South Hall was never an "agricultural build-
ing" except in a decorative sense. Twenty-five years ago
we forsook the cellar of South Hall and captured an
abandoned carpenter shop and it became the first "agri-
cultural building" of the University. It was last seen
spanning the creek just below the slope on which we are now
standing and as this new building was rising, I often
thought how dramatic it would be to point from this noble
granite building to the creek-spanning shack below and
thus indicate the growth of the department. It was our
only chance of suggesting a physical perspective. But a
few weeks ago someone, ignorant of the sacred memory of
the old building, knocked it to pieces — for blotting the
landscape, no doubt. What can we do to get the foundation
for a perspective when buildings depart and men alone are
permanent ?
In the thick ruck of recency in which we are enfolded
we gape for something which will serve future generations
as a vanishing point for their perspective and happily we
find it and hold it aloft and, lo, it is the life of a man!
And so we carve an exponent of it in enduring bronze and
place it at the entrance of our first enduring building and
charge it to mark the beginnings of a new epoch — an epoch
in which agriculture will really attain the prominence in
University affairs which was intended by those who
arranged for the establishment of this institution in the
congress of the United States in 1862. This achievement is
based upon the thought and work of Hilgard. All his
associates accept him as an exponent of their ideals of
agricultural science of their efforts toward dissemination of
agricultural intelligence and of their confidence in agri-
cultural development in this state. They have shared with
him for years, full recognition of the opportunity for the
erection here of an institution which shall stand pre-
eminent not only in the demonstration of principle but in
the exposition of the peculiar arts of production which shall
signalize the Pacific Ocean countries as the greatest on
earth in the extent and variety of their agriculture.
We unveil, then, this effigy of Hilgard, not as a me-
morial of his, for he needs none ; his fame will live without
such a token ; his life is written in his work and that cannot
be forgotten. What purpose, then, does this bronze serve?
It is an enduring record of our appreciation of Hilgard : a
29
monument to our own insight and sagacity. We do not
propose to have some smug commentator of some coming
century write in his books: "There was, at the beginning
of the twentieth century, a man in California named Hil-
gard, whose life and work are in the foundation of
America's contribution to agriculture science, but his associ-
ates did not recognize his greatness."
And so we throw this bronze into the face of the future
and we cry aloud to coming generations:
' * This is our Hilgard ! It will cost you great aspiration
to produce a better man."
ADDRESS OF TIK >.MAS FORSYTH HUNT ON THE MOTIVE OF
THE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
The men and women connected with the College of
Agriculture and Experiment Station have for their aim
the development of the agricultural resources of California.
The word agriculture is here used in its broadest signifi-
cance: namely, the economic production of living things.
The agency through which this body of men and women
is to accomplish its purpose is the University of California,
but I wish here and now publicly to announce that they
are eager to co-operate with all other agencies — federal,
state, or private — which may have for their main purpose
the maintenance in California of a successful family life.
The assertion of Dr. Carver is fully accepted, that if
one admits that life is worth living, he who allows the love
of money, or power, or land, or science, or literature to
interfere with the rearing of a noble family commits a
criminal act. It is not necessary that every one should
assume the marriage relation, but when a couple has taken
each other for better or worse, it is a crime to permit any
30
other motive or ambition to prevent the rearing of a worthy
family. A man's business should be his means of making
a successful home and not the means of getting a front
page illustration. Between the age of twenty-five and fifty
the wife may well assist in this enterprise.
I was permitted recently to sit at the table of a capable
woman. She exclaimed: "I am a free woman. I am
fifty. I no longer need to conceal my age." According
to the law of probabilities this woman has twenty years
to devote through education and politics to promoting the
social welfare. The women of her class have the power
to become through their mature judgment and culture the
greatest and most benign influence in every community.
It is so plain that he who runs may read that not only
can no development of agriculture be considered wise which
does not lead to a successful family life, but that in Cali-
fornia a proper development of its agriculture is essential
to this end. The acceptance of this doctrine by the Anglo-
Saxon race would solve many if not most of the difficulties
which beset the body politic. It is the home-loving people
who inherit the earth. It is the immediate duty of the
College of Agriculture through research and education to
make the agriculture of California more prosperous.
Through its various divisions, it is straining every nerve
to solve the material problems which beset those who create
wealth from the soil. It is its chief duty, however, to
develop those methods of agriculture which are of greatest
benefit to society. The College of Agriculture is not pri-
marily interested in whether the profits of agriculture
enable the ranchman to substitute for his $3000 automo-
bile a $5000 motor car, but it conceives its chief concern
to be a prosperity that leads to the proper economic, social,
moral, and spiritual ideals in the community.
When the interests of the individual and those of society
become opposing forces, then here as elsewhere in the his-
tory of the human race individual interests must be sacri-
ficed for the benefit of the common good. Lest I be mis-
31
understood, permit me to moralize for a moment. While
the trait which we honor most in any individual, the trait
which has made all truly great heroes, is sacrifice, it does
not follow that there is no virtue without sacrifice. In
the new conception of a successful life, we do not have
prosperity without morality, but we have prosperity be-
cause of morality. Efficiency and morality may not be
synonymous terms, but they are mighty good chums.
This, then, shall be the keynote of the College of Agri-
culture. Those who shape its destinies will never forget
that it was formed and continues to exist to promote the
material welfare, but they will always recognize that this
material welfare is for the sake of a successful human
existence and that primarily this is based upon human
efficiency. Five thousand years ago the natural resources
of these hills and valleys were, so far as we know, as great
as they are to-day. The Aladdin-like development that has
occurred from Imperial to Shasta during fifty years is due
to a hardy and efficient race of people. This race must
be perpetuated. Once more I wish to repeat that the fac-
ulty of the College of Agriculture invites the co-operation,
support, and guidance of all agencies which believe in this
programme.
If now we take a hasty glance into the future we can-
not fail to be impressed by the fact that the two great prob-
lems before California are to stabilize its water supply and
humanize its labor supply. A few simple concrete illus-
trations may be better than much abstract discussion. In
the Salt River Valley, Arizona, approximately ten million
dollars have been expended, including the great Roosevelt
Dam, to stabilize the water supply over 130,000 acres of
already irrigated country and to bring 100,000 acres of
the desert under the irrigation ditch. It was expected that
this greatest reclamation enterprise in the United States
would furnish about two dollars' worth of water per acre.
In other words, a gross income per annum of about one-half
a million dollars was anticipated. Although the enterprise
32
has scarcely been completed in all its details, already it has
contracts for one million dollars worth of electric energy.
It is said that there is nowhere any more livable region
than in the foothills of the California mountains. Here
can be developed unlimited power without the loss of any
natural resource except the oil required to lubricate the
machinery. In developing the power, the water in the val-
leys will be mobilized. When this is accomplished California
will have ten millions of people in place of two and a half
millions. The slogan for California should not be one mil-
lion persons for this or that city, depending upon which
part of the State one is from, but two million families for
California. Cover your hills and fill up your valleys with
homes, and the cities will take care of themselves.
A certain rich man who made himself wealthy by mixing
a well known California product with a commodity not
unknown to any state and selling it as a cure for various
ills, purchased a considerable tract of land in a State fa-
mous for the Presidents which it has produced and began
breeding Percheron horses. This man had the money to buy
the best horses of the breed. He was capable of employing
the most expert superintendents. The soil and climate were
sufficiently like that of "La Perche ' ' to satisfy the require-
ments of horse breeding. One day I chanced to meet a
groomsman, who declared that the enterprise was doomed
to failure. "Why?" he was asked. "Because the Perche-
ron horse is the result of loving care by generations of
farmers. Mr. Blank, with all his millions, cannot purchase
these generations of men without whom these horses are
not possible." Our rich friend still operates his land, but
he has long since ceased to try to breed horses.
California has rich river valleys whose conditions are
like those which generations of Holland farmers have made
famous. Canada has its agents in the lowlands inducing
the Holland farmers to migrate to this northern country,
while our river valleys with their mild climate remain unde-
veloped. To develop this State with the least human sacri-
33
fice some selective process of locating people upon the land
is needed. It is said that the farmers in the countries
bordering upon the Mediterranean Sea are now saving their
money against the time of the opening of the Panama Canal.
When the thrifty Mediterranean folk come to our shore it
will be the first time in the history of the world that these
races have migrated to a country which was similar in
its possibilities to their own. To entice these people upon
land by means of "decoys" would be a social and economic
crime. We need to study the history and adaptation of
the peoples who now live in regions with natural conditions
similar to our own. Instead of alluring the off-scourings
we should by some selective process secure the intelligent,
thrifty, moral countryman whose generations of experience
will help to develop this country. When he arrives he
should be located among natural conditions with which he
has been familiar and protected until he has his industry
upon its feet. It would be a form of protection that would
protect. If you wish to compete with the peoples of the
world you must develop in every locality that industry
which naturally does best in that particular region, and
you must put it in the hands of people who are the most
expert in that particular industry. By no other process
can a state be developed to its highest efficiency.
The President and Board of Regents will be asked to
establish a department in the College of Agriculture to be
known as the Department of New Agricultural Industries.
Already the United States Department of Agriculture and
the State Experiment Stations have done splendid work in
Plant Introduction. The introduction of a plant and the
establishment of an industry upon that plant, however,
are two widely different things. This department of New
Agricultural Industries will not bear research nor a teach-
ing department in the ordinary sense of the term. Its
duty will be to study the agricultural industries of regions
having conditions similar to California and to study our
own State with reference to any industries which investi-
34
gation may seem desirable to transplant. Last week we
were told that Palestine is an exact counterpart of Cali-
fornia, except that Palestine is only one-tenth the size.
Within this diminutive area it duplicates the Sacramento
and San Joaquin valleys, the valleys of the coast and the
Sierra Nevadas and Coast Ranges. There is the same vari-
ation in climatic conditions and above all they have a four
thousand year old agriculture. No one knows what agricul-
tural lessons this old world holds in store for us. Perhaps
it may yet enable us to become the greater Palestine of a
new civilization.
We have been discussing a century long programme and
a state wide movement. Every man and woman in this
audience will have been gathered in by Father Time long
before our water supply has been fully stabilized and our
labor supply fully humanized. We are not now dealing
with the individual, but with society. If society is not
able to look beyond the confines of its individual members
it is doomed to eternal damnation.
It may have occurred to some of you that the questions
which have been discussed are beyond the realm of the
institution which I for the moment represent. What has
been said is for the purpose of emphasizing the fact that
the University of California is perforce the leader of
thought in all that relates to the welfare of the State and
its College of Agriculture, if it is to be effective, must be
the leader in all that relates to the development of Agricul-
ture. To fail to accept such leadership would be to fail
to understand the responsibility that is placed upon it. Any
other attitude upon the part of the people, whose child the
institution is, would be reprehensible.
Pedagogically speaking — I use that phrase because I do
not know what it means — the College of Agriculture has
two ambitions: one is to become the post-graduate institu-
tion in Agriculture for the western third of the United
States, and the other is to supply the demand in California
for teachers of agriculture in the secondary schools. To
35
receive the agricultural graduates of the western third of
the United States and train them for greater service in
the institutions from which they came is not only a privi-
lege but a responsibility and one which every other insti-
tution will welcome. If this institution assists in the prep-
aration of the future instructors and investigators of our
western colleges and prepares the teachers of agriculture
for the high schools of California, it will be performing a
service of untold value. The two ambitions to which ref-
erence has just been made are, of course, after all only a
minor part of the educational work of the College of
Agriculture?
In developing our undergraduate departments, at least
some of them will be organized around the industries. Al-
ready we have the Departments of Dairy Industry, Animal
Industry, Agronomy or field culture, Citriculture, Viticul-
ture, Pomology or deciduous tree fruits, Floriculture and
landscape gardening. The reasons for this are many and
complex, but one important reason is that we are not teach-
in LT subjects, but students. The student is going to become
a lawyer, or a citrus grower, or a doctor, or a stock raiser,
or a teacher, or a dairyman. Harvard was founded to train
ministers and afterwards because ministers often gave so-
called medical advice, it began to train physicians. Later
lawyers were brought in out of the rain.
The land grant colleges were founded to train young
men and women in the several pursuits and professions of
life, of which housekeeping is one — in some localities. The
difficulty with agricultural teachers has been that they have
been absorbed in the pursuit of knowledge and obsessed
with the importance of their discoveries. Greek must be
made a good training subject or it cannot justify its ex-
istence in the university curriculum. Agriculture can be
made just as good a training subject if we remember we
are dealing with young men who have red blood in their
veins and who have an ambition to live a life of usefulness
and power. If we forget it, they had better study Greek.
36
The successful teacher of agricultural subjects must not
only be concerned with his subject and with his students,
but if he is also an investigator, as every good teacher should
be, he must concern himself with the people in the industry
which he teaches. There is no state in the Union where
it is so necessary for the agricultural professor to know
thoroughly his subject before he undertakes to deal with
the men who make their living from agriculture as here.
In California they do not hunt grizzlies with shotguns.
The College of Agriculture is not merely a teaching
institution. It has three phases: research, education, and
public service. When it comes to organizing its research
work, especially where large questions and interests are in-
volved, we shall organize around the problem rather than
around the industry. These strictly research departments
will not be charged with undergraduate teaching, but will
be permitted to take post-graduate students. A real post-
graduate student is one who is working out some problem.
Thus there has been organized a research department with
headquarters at Riverside. There has been called to preside
over this department Dr. H. J. Webber, Professor of Plant
Breeding of Cornell University, who is one of the best known
teachers of post-graduate students in this country.
In the location of its headquarters the College of Agri-
culture is somewhat unique among institutions of its kind.
Its location has been looked upon as an element of weak-
ness. As the institution develops, I think it will be found
to be, on the contrary, an element of great strength. It
puts us face to face with the problem of how to give to the
students of agriculture the training and experience which
they must have in order to succeed in any one of several
agricultural pursuits. The plan is to bring the student to
the close of his sophomore year with as thorough a training
in English, mathematics, language, history, and science as
his years of schooling will permit. In addition to these
studies, each student before reaching the junior year is to
37
receive instruction in the following four agricultural sub-
jects :
Agricultural Chemistry;
Soils;
Plant Propagation;
The Principles of Breeding Plants and Animals.
The last I consider almost as fundamental as the English
language.
It is believed that the work of these four subjects should
be required of every student, whatever agricultural pro-
fession or pursuit he may subsequently follow. Since they
are to be required of all students of agriculture and since
they are the first technical ones in the student's course,
great care will be taken to secure for these four subjects
inspiring teachers. The student who does not come early
in his course in contact with, at least, one teacher that
inspires him with the love of scholarship and his subject
misses the best part of a college education. After instruc-
tors have been called they will not be permitted to place
these sophomore subjects in the hands of assistants, while
they confine their teaching to upper classmen.
Having brought the student to the close of his sopho-
more year, when he must decide in what agricultural pro-
fession or pursuit he will specialize, the question arises
how, with our present headquarters, we can offer him suit-
able training. During the past decade forestry schools have
been compelled to study this problem. It is possible to
locate an institution on a farm, but there are some diffi-
culties in locating it permanently in a forest. The approved
plan in forestry schools now is to take the students at the
close of the sophomore year to the forest camp, where for
eight weeks they are given both theoretical and practical
instruction. During the junior and the first half of the
senior years they pursue their studies at the college. The
last half of their senior year they are again taken to the
forest, where they receive instruction under conditions
38
which experience has shown are essential to the preparation
of seasoned foresters. When the forestry courses were first
established the students went to the forest camp at the close
of the junior year.
There are three reasons for changing the camping period
to the close of the sophomore year:
First, it serves to weed out the faint hearted. The
young fellow who thinks forestry was a pink tea is
promptly disillusioned and probably eliminated. Second,
it enables the student to appreciate better the technical
subjects which he will pursue during his junior and senior
years. Third, it offers the student during his junior vaca-
tion an opportunity to secure employment in his chosen
field, thus furnishing money with which to continue his
education and valuable practical experience.
Applying this principal to our own problem, we may
send sophomores who would specialize in dairying or animal
husbandry to Davis, those who would specialize in agron-
omy either to Davis or Fresno, and those who wish to
engage in horticultural pursuits or landscape gardening to
Fresno or Riverside. When we have a department of For-
estry, students can go to the forestry station at Chico or
at Santa Monica. Students interested in strictly sub-
tropical fruits can be taught at the Imperial Station some
of the conditions of management in these rapidly develop-
ing and truly fascinating crops. Students who specialize
in soils could be taken into the soil survey work and given
actual training in soil mapping. If the option is Agri-
cultural Chemistry, Plant Pathology or Entomology, the
student will find the laboratories at Berkeley open to him,
while students of agricultural education will find their
training ground in connection with the regular summer
school work of the University.
As we are now organized, students may go to Davis the
last half of their senior year, where they can receive in-
struction in certain subjects which are developed better
there than at Berkeley. This is notably true of instruction
in animal husbandry and dairy industry.
While the University Farm at Davis is an exceedingly
important factor in the development of the research work
and is becoming a much more important factor than was
anticipated in the training of University students, its most
unique feature is the instruction given to University Farm
School students. In this school an attempt is being made
to solve the most important educational question in this
country. We have in America a perfectly well understood
system of education:
Primary grade 7 to 10
Grammar grade 11 to 14
High school grade 15 to 18
University grade 19 to 22
Post-graduate work 23 to 25
This is a thoroughly desirable system of education and
one that should be extended to apply as nearly as possible
to every young man and woman. There are, however, large
numbers of young men who have reached the age of 19
who do not have the requirements for admission to college.
They will not go to the high school because they are be-
yond high school age. They could not get the proper in-
struction if they did go, because the method of instruction
must be different for students at 19 and those of 15 years.
Age must be recognized as a factor in education. A young
man or woman at 19 differs from the boy or girl of 15,
physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually. One hun-
dred and twenty students entered the University Farm
School at Davis this semester and 118 entered freshmen
in the College of Agriculture at Berkeley. The average
age of the intrants at Davis was 19 years and 4 months;
the average age of the freshman intrants in agriculture,
20 years and 5 months.
An agricultural high school is not being conducted at
Davis, but there is being given a three years ' course in Agri-
40
culture to students of university age who do not have the
requirements for admission to college. In addition to the
students who come to Davis because they do not have the
requirements to enter college, there are high school grad-
uates who desire to spend only two years in further study
and who find the last two years at Davis upon which they
can enter better suited to their needs than the first two
years at Berkeley. Every effort should be made to meet
the needs of this class of men. The minimum age of
entrance at Davis should be raised to 18 years, first, be-
cause the student should be induced to exhaust his local
agencies of education before entering the farm school, and
second, because when he has completed his three years ' work
he should be mature enough to enter upon business for
himself.
Emphasis should be placed upon the fact that the train-
ing offered at Davis has nothing to do with the introduction
of agriculture into the high schools. This should be done,
but it is a wholly different thing. The high school system
should be so arranged that every boy and girl between
the ages of 15 and 18 can sleep at home. The boys and
girls between these ages need their parents, and equally
important, perhaps, the parents need the children. Eight-
een is the accepted age for breaking home ties. From 18
to 22 is that transitional period during which the young
man or woman gets adjusted to his or her surroundings.
A student enters college a boy and leaves it a man. In
some ways this is the most important fact concerning his
university career. If this view is acepted, it will at once
become apparent that the University Farm School at Davis
is not a local institution. It may be just as useful to the
young man who lives in Imperial Valley or in Butte County
as to one born within five miles of Davis.
Unless the ranches of California are to be abandoned
or are to be cultivated by foreigners, there are in Cali-
fornia at this moment more than 8000 young men between
the ages of 18 and 21 who will some day occupy the land.
41
Less than six hundred are now receiving instruction in
Agriculture at Berkeley and Davis. In a comparatively
few years, a thousand students of agriculture will be en-
rolled at each place unless we do something to stop them.
It should be determined at once what is the most efficient
number that can be accommodated at Davis. It should
be determined whether it is to be 300, or 600, or 1000.
Plans should be made to start a new unit at Fresno as soon
as the most efficient number that can be cared for at Davis
is reached. At Fresno, where the University owns 5400
acres of land, there is an opportunity to build up the most
extensive, most varied, and best instruction in horticulture,
both for farm school and university, that is to be found
in the world. No other such possibility exists anywhere.
At Davis special emphasis should be placed upon dairying,
animal husbandry, and deciduous tree fruits. At Fresno,
the emphasis should be placed upon grapes, citrus and other
sub-tropical fruits, and upon alfalfa and other forage crops.
Instruction and investigations in cereals should be devel-
oped at both places. Under the conditions outlined a young
man from Bakersfield or El Centre might go to Davis to
receive instruction in animal husbandry and dairying, while
the young man from Marysville might go to Fresno to
specialize in horticultural subjects.
The tentative organization and scope of the College of
Agriculture has been set forth with a good deal of tedious
detail. I am frank to say that it has been done with a very
definite purpose. The desire has been to make emphatic
three points:
First — The College of Agriculture is located in Cali-
fornia. Berkeley, Riverside, Whittier, Davis, Meloland
and other places are merely points of operation. Los
Angeles is the headquarters of the Santa Fe Railroad, but
the Santa Fe Railroad is not located in Los Angeles. Last
year the College of Agriculture met face to face 150,000
citizens of California.
42 -*
Second — The work which is carried on at Berkeley,
Whittier, and Davis is not primarily for the development
of the immediate localities, but is a part of a general scheme
of education and research which looks toward promoting
the general welfare of the commonwealth. The establish-
ment of the Citrus Experiment Station is not primarily for
the purpose of promoting the raising of oranges in River-
side County, but is for the purpose of studying problems
which are of the greatest importance wherever agriculture
exists under an irrigation ditch.
Third — Any additional points of operation which it may
hereafter be deemed wise to establish must be considered
from the standpoint of the general plan which has just
been outlined and of the public welfare and not from the
standpoint of local interest. I have faith that the people
of California will rise to this high level.
I am not unmindful that there has been some criticism of
the College of Agriculture and Experiment Station of the
University of California. I am aware that this criticism
has come from widely divergent sources and represents
widely different view points. I am glad it has occurred. It
is evidence that you believe that the College of Agriculture
represents something that is worth while. If it is con-
structive criticism, I hope it will continue. What I wish
to make clear is that I believe you have not fully understood
the importance, scope, or complexity of your agricultural
college. I could easily demonstrate to you by facts and
figures its relative importance among institutions of its
kind. This address is already quite too long. Suffice is to
say that the fact is, my predecessors have not been ex-
ploiters. They and their associates have quietly applied
their talents to the solution of fundamental questions. No
amount of criticism could swerve them from the path which
to them seemed for the ultimate good. Viewpoints may
change, but I accept, as a sacred obligation, the responsi-
bility of carrying forward the motive which has been their
guiding star.
43
The programme which has been outlined is a large one.
It is worthy of a great State. For its success, it needs the
help of every citizen. I believe it to be both logical and
feasible. I ask for it the candid criticism of every person
interested in the public welfare. With the assured and
earnest support which this programme has of the President
and Board of Regents, I have faith — and I am saying this
in the most impersonal and detached way — that it must
succeed. I trust that President Wheeler was prophetic
when he remarked several months ago, "I believe it will
appeal to the people of California. They like to do a good
thing."
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